August 6, 2009

Candidate websites

They're now listed to the right, below the list of who's running for office this year. Let me know if there are some out there that I don't know anything about.

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alan Marko had a website/blog called "My Left Nut". It was a small-time version or something like The Daily Kos. It was total left wing lunacy. I stumbled upon it by accident once. It is/was bizarre.

Anonymous said...

Also bizzare is the fact that only 1 candidate is embracing the web as a way to spread his message.

I hope more people are going to take advantage of this and put their platforms on line prior to November. Please let the voters make an informed choice!

Anonymous said...

Are the candidates violating any campaign financing laws by using Web Sites?

Anonymous said...

8:03:
it is neither true nor bizarre that "only 1 candidate is embracing the web". candidates were only endorsed a week (dems) - week and a half ago (reps). other candidates will get their pages up soon, and i'm sure the town committees will get pages up for their respective slates.

and, i'd like to point out that gill's site is apparently no more than a web address... doesn't work. derek has had some form of website up (facebook page) since he declared his candidacy.

Steve Collins said...

9:27 -- No.

Anonymous said...

actually, there's nothing wrong, in general, with having a campaign website. we don't really know enough to determine whether the candidates are violating laws. it depends on, among other things, who's financing the websites,the contents of the website, who put the website together and whether they got paid for it (ex: a website company couldn't do it for derek for free, that would be a violation, because companies can only donate to a municipal candidate by paying for ads in an ad book).
derek's site looks good. although, i recall looking at his facebook page a few months ago, and it didn't have the required language "paid for by [campaign name], [treasurer name]". if its still that way, its probably a violation of campaign finance laws and the derek campaign should fix it asap.
because we can't see gill's site (looks broken) who knows if he did something wrong.

Anonymous said...

See article this week in Wall Street Journal.

Maybe Steve will explain it.

Anonymous said...

Derek's Facebook group contains the Paid for and Treasurer information. Top notch Web site and he seems to be on top of the legal aspects of all that stuff too.

Anonymous said...

Facebook is a free service. If it is a free service, nobody is paying for it. Anyone that visits the site would have to be someone's friend or get acceptance from the requested party. There is no money spent on anything so how can you say it was paid for and approved by?

Odin said...

I think you're referring to "My Left Nutmeg" which is a blog for Connecticut politics. It's not Al's site, although I think he has posted stuff there in the past.

Odin said...

I think you're referring to "My Left Nutmeg", a blog for Connecticut politics. It isn't Al's blog, although I think he has posted stuff on it in the past.

Anonymous said...

7:14
i don't make the rules, i just happen to know what they are. it doesn't matter that its free to put a page on that site, according to the people from election enforcement. this is probably because there can be other costs associated with putting such a page together - such as the cost for professional photographs and for the design of the page.

Steve Collins said...

8:55 -- If it's against the election for a candidate to make a free page on Facebook that includes material he or she created and posted, there's something awfully wrong-headed about the law. We should be encouraging this sort of thing, not picking at it in search of some tiny, technical violation of law. Voters want more information, not less.
It would be entirely different if some political consultant created the page or if someone poured money into its contents, but absent the slightest evidence of that, let's relax, ok?

Anonymous said...

One of the late night humorists suggested that there should be a requirement that all legislators wear suits that display the logo of those that are "sponsoring" them, just like the NASCAR drivers too.

Soumds like a good idea to me.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know how to reach Gill? His website isn't up yet and I would like to ask him some questions. I'm anxious to hear his thoughts on a few things.